“The church should have the right to have its own convictions and values; if you don’t like those convictions and values [and] you totally disagree with it, don’t try to change my house, move into your own … and find somebody who gets what you get about faith.” -- T.D. Jakes

Say what you like about T.D. Jakes. He was in the news recently because of his interview with the Huffington Post’s Marc Lamont-Hill where he discussed the black community and the sexual equality movement in general. What seemed to many to be a middle-of-the-road stance about coexistence somehow turned into a pro-gay statement by black churches with Jakes speaking for the throngs. Aaron Barksdale reported on the interview and quickly made Jakes seem like the darling of the gay-pride movement. Late Sunday on August 9, 2015, Jakes clarified his position by posting this statement on Facebook (in part),

“I briefly mentioned (we were running out of time) the word 'evolved and evolving' regarding my approach over the 39 years of my ministry to gay people who choose to come to our services.

I simply meant that my method is evolving—not my message. I was shocked to read that this was manipulated in a subsequent article to say I endorsed same-sex marriage! My position on the subject has been steadfast and rooted in Scripture.

For the record, I do not endorse same-sex marriage, but I respect the rights that this country affords those that disagree with me."

It seems that publications like the Huffington Post push the envelope as far as they can, whenever they can to breathe their liberal agenda into every statement made in public. The fallout is that people are accusing HuffPo of tabloid journalism and others are saying that Jakes is a wimp.

For my part, I appreciate Jakes and his comments because I have run out of patience with folks who hate me for my religion. Keep freedom for freedom’s sake when it comes to religion, I say, because no amount of shouting is going to change those whose beliefs differ from our own. (I have always been a firm believer in our right to be wrong.) For my part, the best approach is to live and let live. Censorship can never win because that slippery slope will drag us all into pit of silence eventually.

The current and popular treatment of religion is that only religions who accept same-sex marriage should be allowed to exist. All others should just dry up and go away. I have been trying to wrap my head around how to approach the pervasive and nagging proliferation of hate speech from the sexual equality movement especially with regard to some views about religion. The bigot card gets played so often by liberals that it ceases to have any meaning anymore. What seems astounding, however, is that the ones who cry bigot are the champions of all hate speech towards organized religions. I have read articles that purport to “put the final nail in the coffin of fundamentalism,” and comments that assure me that “Your kind won’t even exist in 100 years.”

Excuse me, but did you just say, “Your kind?”

Words like “hurt” and “discrimination” are free-flowing. The “We shall overcome” mentality is now on the march. If anyone is being hurt by this cacophonous din of over same-sex equality, it is those of us who are falsely accused of racial bigotry. It is one thing to equate the sexual equality movement with the struggles of the racial equality movement, but to pointedly assume that those not in favor of same-sex “marriage” are also racial bigots is confounding. The LGBT movement may well see themselves as fighting the same fight, but to presume that all their opponents must all be racial bigots by default makes no sense whatsoever.

The same-sex marriage movement would love nothing more than to have the black churches endorse it. This pairing of oppressed groups would present a symbol of solidarity to the world. It would be saying in effect, “Your fight is my fight!” No matter how much the LGBT movement would have loved an endorsement by a spokesman for black churches, their twisting of Bishop Jakes’ comments is soon to backfire on them. The only thing blacks and gays have in common is that both groups have been victims of hate. There is a chasm of difference, however, between one’s ability to procreate via heterosexual union and the color of one’s skin. The proclivity toward certain sexual acts has nothing whatsoever to do with the color of one’s epidermis.

Gay zealots are quick to bring up the case of Loving v. Virginia which centered around an interracial couple’s struggle to be legally married. What the religion–bashers often overlook it that it was the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church who supported and fought for the Lovings (who eventually won their case). These churches backed the Lovings because they knew that there is no reason why a committed heterosexual couple should not be married when that is their choice. Consider the alternative: the Lovings, if they lost, would be doomed to live in sin and their children would be born out of wedlock.

Just as the gay movement should be brought to task for their accusations of racial bigotry toward conservatives, so too should they learn that the “born that way” theory is as of yet a mere hypothesis. Medical science has yet to find the “gay” gene and many homosexuals themselves have admitted that they freely chose their lifestyle. (The existence of a gay gene would also lead us to ponder what drives the behavior of those who bed both sexes, n’est pas?) At any rate, people who do not possess any special DNA but who engage in a homosexual lifestyle would then need to be “outed” all over again as genetic wannabes. In the end, there are other harmful behaviors, like substance addiction that are probably guided by genetics, but that does not validate their manifestations as socially acceptable or beneficial.

None of this rational thought seems to have any effect on those who would argue endlessly in the multitude of com-boxes out on the Internet. Polite exchanges have gone the way of the floppy disk and the eight-track tape. Even the patronizing tones as in, “Now, now, you don’t want to be a party-pooper, do you?” have been abandoned. The current state of affairs when it comes to commenting seems to be just the snidest, mocking, all out war being waged by a class of people with the emotional intelligence of a four-year-old. Any poignant reminders that religious persecution belongs with the Nazis will be met with, “We’re not killing you so this shouldn’t matter.” Go figure.